Russian President Vladimir Putin has delivered an unsettling tribute to Darya Dugina, the daughter of a prominent member of the Russian elite who was killed in a car bombing this weekend.
Dugina, whose father Alexander Dugin is a notorious ultranationalist, died in an explosion on a motorway near the village of Bolshiye Vyazyomy just outside the capital on Saturday night.
The Kremlin quickly announced the culprit behind the bombing as 43-year-old Ukrainian mother and alleged spy Natalia Shaban-Vovk.
But Ukrainian and Western officials, as well as a number of prominent Russian commentators, believe the car bomb was likely executed by agents loyal to Putin after Dugin criticised the Russian president in a public Telegram post.
Hundreds of people this morning attended Dugina’s funeral service in a large television studio in Moscow, where she worked as a prominent pro-Kremlin broadcaster.
A huge portrait of Dugina, 29, hung above her coffin which was heavily guarded and surrounded by flower wreaths and streamers bearing the colours of the Russian Federation.
The message from Putin read: ‘Accept my sincere condolences and words of support due to the hardest, irreplaceable loss you suffered.
‘A vile, cruel crime ended the life of Darya Dugina, a bright, talented person with a true Russian heart – kind, loving, open and sympathetic.
‘A journalist, a scientist, a philosopher, a military correspondent, she honestly served the people, the Fatherland, and proved with her life what it means to be a patriot of Russia.
‘The memory of Darya Dugina will be forever kept by her close people and friends, her comrades.
‘Wishing you strength and fortitude in this mournful hour,’ the message concluded.
Dugin was later pictured sobbing into his hands on stage as Dugina’s mother stood by her coffin to pay her final respects.
Russian political scientist and ideologue Alexander Dugin (bottom left) mourns for his daughter Darya Dugina, who was killed in a car bomb attack, during a memorial service in Moscow, Russia August 23, 2022
Daria Dugina, a 29-year-old commentator with a nationalist Russian TV channel, died when a remotely controlled explosive device planted in her SUV blew up on Saturday night as she was driving on the outskirts of Moscow (Dugina’s mother is pictured standing by her coffin as father Alexander sits forlornly bottom left)
Daria Dugina followed in her father’s footsteps, becoming a well-known media personality who worked for pro-Kremlin television channels including Russia Today and Tsargrad. Her coffin is pictured here at a farewell ceremony in Moscow
Darya Dugina, a sanctioned Russian nationalist whose father Alexander Dugin is a notorious fascist dubbed ‘Putin’s brain’, died in an explosion on a motorway near the village of Bolshiye Vyazyomy just outside the capital on Saturday night
The Kremlin alleged that 43-year-old mother Natalia Shaban-Vovk (pictured) is a Ukrainian spy and was behind the car bombing attack
Most international observers remain convinced the assassination was actually carried out by Russian agents who wanted to silence the victim’s father. Mr Dugin was seen at the blast scene, holding his head in his hands
The burnt out wreckage of Dugina’s Toyota is seen here after the deadly explosion on August 20
Dugin, a bearded Rasputin-esque figure who some believe may have been the intended target of the bombing, sat forlornly alongside Dugina’s mother at the funeral this morning.
When the moment came for him to deliver a speech, he told funeral-goers: ‘I wanted to raise my daughter the way I see an ideal human, so first of all it was about belief.
She spent her entire childhood in Orthodox camps. But I also wanted her to be a smart Orthodox person, so with her mother we advised her to become a philosopher, and she became one.
‘She died for Russia, on the front line… She lived for victory, and died in the name of victory.’
He said her last words to him before getting into her Toyota Land Cruiser were: ‘Papa, I feel like a warrior, I feel like a hero.’
Russian authorities pinned the assassination on alleged Ukrainian spy Shaban-Vovk, who they say sneaked into Russia – bringing her 12-year-old daughter with her – and tracked Dugina for weeks before activating the deadly car bomb and fleeing into Estonia, all without being caught.
The chain of events leading up to Dugina’s death as presented by Russia’s security service included Shaban-Vovk changing her appearance and vehicle number plates to hoodwink guards before fleeing from Russia across the Estonian border.
The FSB also released what it claimed was the Ukrainian mother’s military documents, including a passport-style photo of her.
But commentators questioned why Shaban-Vovk, if she is indeed a Ukrainian spy responsible for the killing, would leave her military identification behind and accused Russian authorities of producing a fake to pin the assassination on Ukraine.
Estonian foreign minister Urmas Reinsalu today dismissed the wild claims as a ‘Russian information operation’.
‘We regard this as one instance of provocation in a very long line of provocations by the Russian Federation, and we have nothing more to say about it at the moment,’ said the minister, adding Russia had made no request to extradite the alleged killer.
The head of the International Centre for Defence and Security (ICDS) in the Estonian capital Tallinn, Indrek Kannik, claimed that Dugina had far more likely been killed by an internal Russian operation.
‘It is possible that this was the FSB’s own operation, since these people had become a threat.
‘At the same time, it is convenient to blame it on the Ukrainians. Now we are seeing that Estonia can also be dragged in to this.’
Ukraine has strongly denied any role in the killing in Moscow, accusing the Kremlin of a ‘false flag’ operation to blame Kyiv.
Meanwhile, respected Russian expert Andrei Piontkovsky said the murder of Dugina was professional, indicating that the Russian secret services are likely involved, while Russian-American historian Yuri Felshtinsky claimed the attack would have been authorised by the Kremlin.
‘The blowing up of the car of the famous Russian fascist and ideologist of the Putin regime, Alexander Dugin, was organised, it seems, by the Russian security services,’ Felshtinsky said.
‘On the latest Russian reports, the bomb was attached to Dugin’s car inside his guarded compound. Ukraine focuses on military targets, unlike Russia, and there is no discernible gain in attacking one of Putin’s media puppets or allocating scarce operatives inside the Russian Federation to such a goal that is meaningless to the liberation of Ukraine.
‘The Kremlin will, however, likely exploit it to make it seem as if Ukraine is stooping to its own tactics of bombing harmless civilians in Ukraine.’
Kremlin-linked media posted what they said is Natalia Shaban-Vovk’s ID card, but commentators quickly questioned why the Ukrainian mother would leave behind such a valuable document and accused Russian authorities of an obvious fake
According to the FSB’s case file, Shaban-Vovk tailed Dugina in a Mini Cooper (pictured) for weeks and changed the car’s
Dugina (right), whose father Alexander Dugin (left) is a notorious ultranationalist, died in an explosion on a motorway near the village of Bolshiye Vyazyomy just outside the capital on Saturday night
Debris is pictured strewn across the motorway in the aftermath of the explosion at the weekend which killed Dugina
The car bombing took place in Bolshiye Vyazyomy, on the outskirts of Moscow
Seven hours before the assassination on Saturday night, Dugin had issued a vitriolic online post on Telegram saying that the war in Ukraine was now more important than Putin’s presidency.
Dugin had claimed the war and ‘desperate resistance of the Atlanto-Nazi regime in Kyiv’ demands from Russia ‘internal transformations’.
The tone was strongly critical of Putin.
‘The Supreme Commander-in-Chief [Putin] said that we haven’t really started anything yet. Now we have to start. Whether you want it or not, we’ll have to,’ the post read.
‘Now the question is not whether the government wants or does not want change. Such changes are simply inevitable… The mighty forces of history have come into play, the tectonic plates have shifted. Let the old regime bury its dead.
‘A new Russian time is coming. And it’s coming irreversibly.’
Most international observers remain convinced the assassination was actually carried out by Russian agents who wanted to silence the victim’s father.
Analyst Yekaterina Shulman says the outpouring of anger among pro-Kremlin commentators in response to the car bomb attack appears suspicious: ‘The reaction… was immediate. It looks as if they were waiting for something like this to happen.’
Shulman added the killing ‘could possibly be used to ramp up some public outrage in the country to justify even more active repressive actions by the state’.
